Ecology Webquest



Ecology Webquest

Ecologist: (YOUR NAME)_____________________________________

 

Part I: Ecosystems and Nutrient Cycling

 

Your first assignment is to put together a simple food chain and answer the

questions below.

 

  I. FOOD CHAINS

 

1) Go to

and click on “play the game” to begin.

 

Answer the questions below:

 

1.    A person is called a _____________________________________ because they eat producers and consumers.

2.    Food gives people and animals __________________________________.

3.    ________________________ are animals that only eat meat.

4.    ________________________ are animals that only eat plants.

 

(2)      Choose the Forest Food Chain.

 

            1.     What animals were in your food chain? Place them in the correct order.

 

          2.      What 5 things happen if you take the frog out of the food chain?

1. _________________________________________________

2. _________________________________________________

3. _________________________________________________

4. _________________________________________________

5. _________________________________________________

 

  II. FOOD WEBS

 

(1)     Go to and choose one of the three food webs. Put the food web together!

 

|Consumers – are living things that need producers to be their food (animals and people) |

|Producers – living things which take the non living matter from the environment (plants) |

|Decomposers – living things which feed off of dead plants and animals (bacteria, fungi) |

(2)     Using the information in the table above and what you know about trophic levels answer the following questions about your food chain:

 Name a producer in your food web ________________________________

Name a primary consumer in your food web__________________________

       

Name a secondary consumer in your food web ________________________

Who are usually the decomposers in a food web? _______________________

If the producer has 100 units of energy, and this food chain follows the general rule of energy transfer (what percent is transferred on average?) how much energy will be available for the primary consumer? ________

How much energy will be available for the secondary consumer? __________

 

  III. NUTRIENT CYCLING

 

A. Carbon Cycle

 

(1) Go to Click and complete scene 1.

 

(2)           Name 2 places on the earth we find carbon:

 

        1.    __________________________     2.  ___________________________

 

 

(3)     Go to , read about the carbon cycle and fill in the blanks below:

 

Plants pull carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere to make food, through a process called ____________________.

 

Through food chains animals get ____________ from the plants and other animals they eat.

 

When plants and animals die and ____________, carbon goes back into the

ground.

Some carbon is buried deep in the ground and forms ________________________.

When humans burn fossil fuels, ________________ is released back into the atmosphere.

 

When humans and animals exhale, they release carbon back into the air by a process called ______________________________.

                      

 B.    Nitrogen Cycle

 

Go to the website and answer the questions below:

1. What are 2 ways nitrogen becomes useable to plants, humans and animals:

 

           ________________________________

 

           ________________________________

2. How do herbivores obtain the nitrogen they need?

_________________________________________________________

3. How is nitrogen returned to the atmosphere?

_________________________________________________________

4. What are two ways humans impact the nitrogen cycle:

         

1.________________________________________________________

 

2.________________________________________________________

 

Go to the following two websites



and



and view the images of the Nitrogen Cycle as well as skim through the descriptions.

Compare/contrast the two images of the Nitrogen Cycle.

What do they have in common? Is there anything unique about each image?

 

What absorbs the atmospheric nitrogen? ____________________

What role do nitrogen-fixing bacteria play in the Nitrogen Cycle?

Play the Vermi Game to demonstrate the cycling of matter in a compost bin.

Watch the youtube video (you will have to copy and paste the link into the address bar)



(note if the video does not play, just move on to the next portion of the activity)



Visit the link above, read the introduction, watch the animation, take the quiz, and answer the following questions:

5. What are some of the “pioneer” species in glacial moraines?

6. How do alder trees affect nitrogen content in soil?

7. How do the alder trees influence spruce tree growth?

8. Write the answers to the two quiz questions.

IV. Visit:

|Examples of Abiotic Factors |Examples of Biotic Factors |

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1. Draw a picture to describe carrying capacity.

2. What is biodiversity?

a. What is the importance of biodiversity?

b. How do humans influence biodiversity?

3. Describe ecological succession.

a. Draw a picture of ecological succession. Label the pioneer species, primary succession, secondary succession, and climax community.

Part V. Visit this website

1. Click on virtual ecosphere.

2. Follow the directions for building an ecosphere in a bottle.

3. List all the biotic and abiotic factors in your ecosystem.

4. Run the simulation

5. How did you do? What went wrong? How could you fix it or how would you do it differently.

6. Try it one more time.

 

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